LOOKING AFTER YOUR COMPANION

Full time missionary elders and sisters are responsible to be with their companions 24 x 7 every day! From the time they arrive in the mission field until the day they return home after completing their proselyting assignment, these young men and women are expected to remain physically close to the person with whom they have been paired to labor together on their errand for the Lord.

Working together as one, two missionaries make effective teams

This Church-wide missionary requirement to work in pairs is for their protection and well-being. Missionaries share an apartment, eat their meals together, travel by twos at all time, study with each other, and teach investigators side by side. Although senior missionaries have some flexibility in this regard (for instance, Elder Lindsay can be engaged in providing service at the bishop's storehouse on a Saturday morning while Sister Lindsay might be helping someone else at the Church), we generally are found together whenever we are engaged in our missionary-related activities.

As parents of eight children who all served full time missions as young adults, we have been grateful for what the Church has done during their missionary years to teach them the principle of looking after those for whom they have significant responsibility. Now, years later, that sense of personal commitment for watching out for their spouses, their own children, and others is both understood and accepted in their role as responsible, mature adults.

As an example of how important this commitment to look after your companion can be, we had a dangerous situation unexpectedly develop with two of our young missionaries last Sunday evening. Without any warning an elder became ill while he and his companion were walking alongside a busy roadway after dark. Having been trained to look out for each other, the healthy young man led his fellow elder safely away from the street and had him sit down on a metal grate while calling Sister Lindsay and me for assistance.

After getting both elders back to our apartment, we contacted the mission president; and due to the serious nature of the problem, we were instructed to telephone the Church doctor assigned to oversee missionary medical emergencies. Within minutes, the four of us we enroute to the emergency room of the local hospital. With the elder flat on his back undergoing multiple tests and a thorough examination by the medical staff, his faithful companion stayed right beside him until the young man was released many hours later at about 2:30 am.

  Ironing his companion's dress shirts . . . an act of love

The nature of the young elder's illness was serious enough that upon examination by other physicians, it was determined that he needed to return home to his family in another state for additional medical attention. Sister Lindsay and I stopped by the missionaries' apartment the day before he was scheduled to fly home and found his ever faithful companion cheerfully ironing the elder's dress shirts and packing his luggage, so the elder could rest up for the journey. It was a voluntary act of love that would make any mother and father proud!

As a footnote . . . the elder has safely returned home, and his medical needs are now been addressed.